


Sweet Things

by AEMiz



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AEMiz/pseuds/AEMiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph Hawke is never at a loss. The moment she meets Isabela, she's completely swept away.</p>
<p>A series of one-shots centered on Steph Hawke (from When I Wake Up) and Isabela.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fine

The first time she sees the pirate’s lips twitch into a half-smile, Steph Hawke feels warmth pool in her belly and an expression that her sister would later describe as “hopelessly silly” spread across her face.

She doesn’t quite hear the woman’s first few words—something about tits? Hawke stumbles her way through a response. The laugh it earns sends her whole body tingling.

“I’m Isabela,” the woman says, bowing with a flourish. “Previously Captain Isabela. Sadly, without my ship, the title rings a bit hollow.”

“You know,” Isabela says, a thoughtful tone lilting her voice, “you might be just what I’m looking for to solve a little problem I have.”

Hawke idly thinks that, to hear that laugh again, she’d march naked through Hightown. “Can’t anyone fix their own lives around here?” she drawls, a slow grin stretching across her face.

It doesn’t earn her another laugh, but she catches the glint of amusement dancing in Isabela’s eyes. “Must be something in the water.”

The pirate launches into an explanation about a person from her past and a duel, and Hawke feels her uneven heartbeat thud against her chest.

She’s done work for half of Kirkwall trying to earn coin and charm important people. She’s never been so excited for the chance to get on someone’s good side.

“I think I can manage to watch your back,” Hawke grins. She can almost hear Bethany grimacing behind her.

But Isabela is smiling and winking at her and Bethany can pout all she wants.

She promises to meet Isabela in Hightown and watches as the pirate saunters out of the tavern, catching the eye of everyone she passes along the way.

Bethany lets out a too-tragic sigh and Hawke raises an eyebrow at her.

“You’re sure you want to go stirring up trouble in Hightown?” Bethany asks. “After we’ve only just got out from under Athenril?”

“The trouble is already stirred,” Hawke defends. “If anything, we’ll be un-stirring it a bit.”

Even as Bethany rolls her eyes, her lips twitch into a grin.

“We’ll be fine,” Hawke assures, slinging an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I practically never get into trouble.”

* * *

 

As soon as Isabela says, “I don’t like this,” Hawke can feel Bethany’s eyes boring into the back of her head.

Varric, too, is wary—which is particularly worrying.

When the mercenaries arrive moments later, Hawke is resigned rather than surprised. The hiss of blades pulling out of scabbards starts a familiar dance. Hawke sweeps and spins, her battle ax cutting a swath through the mercenaries. She thinks for a moment that she could close her eyes and be back in Ferelden, back at Ostagar, with Carver fighting at her side.

“You hit like my grandmother!” a voice calls across the square.

Hawke’s foot nearly slips out from under her. She whirls on her feet in the direction of the voice.

A good fighter is almost always graceful to a degree. They have to be, if they don’t want to end up gutted by an enemy’s blade.

Isabela surpasses grace. She ducks and twirls, taunting and laughing all the while. She darts in between and around the mercenaries, dropping them before they know she’s beside them.

Hawke thought the pirate was beautiful before. Now she thinks that a more glorious being has never existed.

She’s not sure how long she stands there, mouth agape and staring at Isabela, but the fight ends and Hawke scrambles to regain her composure.

If Isabela notices Hawke’s stare, she doesn’t comment. The pirate digs through the fallen mercenaries’ pockets, her pink tongue caught between her teeth. She lets out a triumphant laugh as she pulls a crumpled piece of paper free.

“Hiding in the Chantry and sending thugs to finish me off?” the pirate says, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Coward. He’ll not get away with this. Come on.”

Isabela doesn’t bother looking over her shoulder to see if Hawke is behind her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Hawke wonders how the woman got the measure of her so quickly.

They chase Isabela to the Chantry. Bethany is at Hawke’s shoulder, dodging her sister’s windswept blonde hair and hissing warnings in Hawke’s ear.

“You know this will end in a fight,” Bethany says. “A fight _in the Chantry_. That’s practically begging for the Templars to come after us.”

“We’ll be fine,” Hawke insists. “Everything will work out fine.”

Hawke can feel Bethany glaring at her even through the scuffle that they get into in the Chantry Courtyard. She can do no more than offer her sister a chagrined smile as they slip into the Chantry.

Hayder does not seem surprised to see Isabela in the Chantry. He dismisses Isabela’s suggestion that her arrival is his fault with a shrug.

“Castillon was heartbroken when he heard about the shipwreck,” Hayder drawls. “You should’ve let him know you survived.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Isabela coos.

Hayder mentions a relic and the calm veneer that Isabela has maintained is gone. At the mention of a load of people meant to be sold as slaves, Isabela’s ire flares further. Hawke and Bethany exchange a glance. They can smell a fight by now. Hawke’s hand twitches towards her ax.

“And now the relic’s gone,” Hayder hisses. “Castillon won’t be happy to hear that, I promise you.”

“Castillon isn’t a very happy person, is he?” Hawke observes. She picks apart the knot that ties her ax to her back, her eyes sliding from Hayder to his compatriots and back. “Maybe he needs a new hobby.”

The smirk that tugs at Isabela’s lips makes Hawke think that, even if Hayder and his thugs manage to kill her, the night won’t be a total loss.

“There’s only one way to settle this,” Isabela says.

Her hand moves like lightning. One of Isabela’s blades sinks into the chest of one of Hayder’s lackeys almost the instant the words leave her mouth.

Hawke takes advantage of the few seconds of shock that Hayder succumbs to, swinging her ax in a wide arc that sends the thugs stumbling backwards.

The fight is loud and long. There’s no way, Hawke thinks, that the sisters can’t hear them, but none of them approach—or call for the Templars, for which Hawke is immensely grateful.

Hayder is the last to fall, brought down by Isabela’s daggers.

Hawke replaces her ax, wincing as she finds a nick that one of the mercenaries managed to carve in her side.

The fluttering of her heart as Isabela approaches, unbothered by the blood smeared on her face and body should be embarrassing, Hawke thinks.

Hawke tilts her head to one side, idly picking at the dried blood that has matted her wheat blonde hair. A crooked smile pulls at her lips.

“Stab first, ask questions later?” Hawke asks.

Isabela rolls her shoulders. “Trust me, it’s better this way.” She shakes her head. Hawke notes a weariness in the pirate that doesn’t sit well. “Castillon won’t hear about me from Hayder, but he’ll find me eventually,” she admits. “I just have to get him the relic. It’s as simple as that.” T

here are a million questions that Hawke wants to ask. Where did this woman who frees slaves and sails ships and fights like she was born to do it come from? Why is she in Kirkwall? Is she _quite sure_ she’s not just someone that Hawke created in a fantastic daydream?

She doesn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, she says, “If finding the relic gets Castillon of your back, then I’ll help you retrieve it.”

There is no saucy smirk or laugh in response to this. One of Isabela’s eyebrows lifts minutely.

“I still don’t know where it is,” she says, “but you’ll be the first to know if I hear anything.”

Hawke’s stomach does a backflip.

“Anyway,” the pirate continues, “thanks for helping me out with Hayder.” Her eyes travel up and down Hawke’s form. Whatever she sees there draws a lazy grin to her lips.

“I think I’ll tag along for a while,” Isabela says. “There might be something I could do for you.”

Her arm brushes Hawke’s as she strides her way towards the Chantry door. She pauses a few paces out and tosses another remark over her shoulder.

“And I have a room at the Hanged Man, if you’re looking for…company later.”

The implication knocks Hawke’s breath from her body. She leans heavily against the nearest wall, suddenly a little dizzy.

Her sister’s laugh pulls her back to her senses. Bethany slips an arm around her sister’s shoulders and guides her towards the Chantry doors, a breath of a laugh squeezing out of her. “You’re helpless,” the mage says with affection. “You know that?”

Hawke laughs. “Maybe,” she admits. “But I was right. Everything _did_ work out fine.”


	2. Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany is worried. Hawke promises to keep her safe.

Bethany is sleeping, curled up on her side in the bottom bunk of their tiny bed in their tiny room when Hawke tiptoes in only barely before sunrise.

Steph shimmies her way up the side of the bed and flops gracelessly onto the straw mattress.

“The Hanged Man again?” Bethany’s voice drifts up from the bottom bunk.

Hawke lets out a breath of a laugh as she rolls onto her stomach and leans over the side of the bed to get a better look at her sister. “How could you tell?”

Bethany’s nose wrinkles. “You smell like stale ale. It’s everywhere but on your breath.”

“I could have picked up that scent anywhere,” Hawke points out.

“But Isabella stays at the Hanged Man.”

Hawke pulls herself back up into her bunk, feeling her face redden. “And Varric,” she defends. “You remember Varric—the one who’s helping us get on the Deep Roads expedition?”

“Varric hasn’t had anything new to say about the expedition for months,” Bethany says. “And even you can only lose at Diamondback so many times. You go there to see Isabela.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about that,” Hawke huffs. She rubs roughly at her face with both hands, willing her blush to dissipate.

Bethany is quiet for a moment, but Hawke knows her sister too well to believe that the conversation is over. She doesn’t have to look at Bethany to know that she is chewing on her bottom lip and twisting a lock of dark hair around her fingers as she stares at the top bunk, trying to put together her thoughts.

“We’re on such dangerous ground here,” Bethany says after a time. “Worse than in Lothering. Our work with Athenril got us noticed, but I’m not sure it was in a way that’s going to be helpful. I wonder if sometimes you don’t forget how careful we have to be.”

Bethany’s voice doesn’t accuse—it doesn’t have to. Hawke carries worry and guilt like a stone in her pocket. Carver’s blank stare greets her when she closes her eyes; her mother’s admonishment echoes in her dreams.

“I don’t mean to make you feel unsafe,” Hawke says.

“I know.”

“I didn’t realize you disliked Isabela.”

“I don’t,” Bethany admits. “She’s fun and warm and lively. I like her. I can see why you fancy her.”

“I don’t—“ Hawke objects. Bethany cuts her off with a laugh.

“Of course you do,” she says, affection creeps into her voice in spite of herself. She lets out a sigh. Hawke hears the creak of the boards of the bottom bunk as Bethany shifts to the side and pulls herself up to see her sister’s face.

“Just be careful, will you?” Bethany pleads. “Mother’s lost enough. We’ve all lost enough.”

Something in Bethany’s voice shakes, and Hawke slides off her bunk and pulls her little sister into her arms, whispering nonsense words into Bethany’s ear until her shaking stills.

“You’re the dearest thing,” Hawke says. She pets her sister’s hair as she steers the pair of them onto the bottom bunk. Bethany’s head rests against Hawke’s shoulder as Hawke’s finger scrape lightly at her scalp. “Mother and I are lucky to have you, you know?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Bethany,” Hawke promises. “Not ever.”

* * *

 

Hawke doesn’t drink often. After two seconds of not paying close enough attention loses her Carver, she never wants to dampen her mind—to do anything that might slow her reaction.

The night she returns from the Deep Roads, the night she tells her mother that Bethany isn’t coming home, may never come home, she dumps a bag heavy with coin onto the bar and demands all that it will buy.

The bar keep looks Hawke up and down and raises an eyebrow at her request, but he’s not about to turn away coin. He motions for her to take a seat and slides her the first of many whiskeys.

It does not take many for her vision to swirl and dance whenever she moves her head. She slips unsteadily on her stool, gripping the bar for support as she tries to find her feet. She’s not entire sure where she is going, but she knows she has to move. She has to get away from the weight that’s crushing her chest and tightening her throat and pulling tears to her eyes.

She crashes into three tables and five patrons in her attempt to stumble her way towards the door. Someone shouts behind her; she can feel heavy footsteps moving towards her. She grimaces and gropes for her ax.

“Hawke?”

She turns on her heel. It takes a few moments for her vision to catch up with her. She can feel herself tipping over and resigns herself to becoming better acquainted with the floor, but someone catches her by the elbows.

“Oh, sweet thing,” Isabela’s voice sighs somewhere above her head.

Hawke blinks the pirate’s torso into focus. “’Zabela?” she asks—she thinks: her mouth seems unwilling to form words.

A conversation flies over her head. Her arm is tugged and flung across someone’s shoulders. Hawke sees the steps under her feet. She wills her feet to lift and step but ends up leaning heavily on the body that guides her and hoping that, by some miracle, she doesn’t trip the pair of them.

She is deposited onto a straw-filled mattress and entertains for a moment the notion of sitting and chatting with whoever brought her up the stairs. Gravity, though, has other plans. The ceiling replaces the doorway in her field of vision, though she doesn’t rightly remember sprawling back onto the mattress.

“You’ve worked yourself into a right state,” Isabela says somewhere off to Hawke’s right. A weight settles near the foot of the mattress.

Trying to sit up is a bit like swimming, but Hawke manages. The pirate is watching her with an expression that is either amusement or pity. Maybe both?

“I…heard about Bethany,” Isabela said. Pity, then. “She’s a sweet girl. I wish it hadn’t happened.”

The sigh that Hawke lets out stings. She stares at Isabela’s brown hand, inches away from hers on the mattress.

Her vision blurs and her breath seems to stick in her throat.

“’S my fault,” Hawke chokes out. “Should have watched her more closely. Or left her home. Or been killed by that ogre instead of Carver.”

Isabela’s hand twitches towards her but doesn’t touch.

Hawke lurches forward. Isabela manages to catch her by the waist before she spills onto the floor. The pirate says something, but Hawke isn’t certain she understands it.

Hawke’s chest plate falls to the floor. She stares at it dumbly for several moments before her gloves and bracers follow it.

“What are you doing?” Hawke asks. “I need those. I gotta go home.”

Isabela snorts. “Not like this you don’t,” she says. “You’ll take two steps outside and end up skewered on some mercenary’s blade and Aveline will blame me.”

A light push on her shoulders sends Hawke slumping back against the mattress.

Hawke blinks at the ceiling. “My head hearts.”

Isabela’s laugh warms the room. “Just wait until tomorrow, sweet thing,” she laughs. She starts to move away. Hawke flails in her direction.

She feels warm skin against her own and grips. A wrist? An elbow?

Isabela’s hand closes around her wrist. For a moment, Hawke is sure that the pirate is going to pull herself free.

Instead, Isabela lets out a sigh and give Hawke’s hand a light squeeze. Her weight settles once more at the end of the bed.

“Go to sleep, Hawke,” she says. There is something of a smile curling her voice. “You’re going to have a rough morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a tree fell down in my yard and now my internet is out. Hopefully, that'll be fixed soon, but it may delay posting.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to check out my author page on Facebook for updates on how my original work is going. There should be publication news soon.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/AuthorASCrowder/


	3. Poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They look for the relic. They do not find it.

“I’m going to ask again,” Hawke says, frowning at the dilapidated building that slumps in front of them. “Are you _quite sure_ you want to do this?”

The pirate, all steely eyes and dark expression, doesn’t answer. She storms her way towards the door, one hand hovering at the pommel of one of her daggers.

With a half-hearted shrug to Merrill and Varric, both of whom mirror her own dubious expression, Hawke picks her axe free of the ties that latch it to her back and follows Isabela to the door.

There is a part of Hawke—the cold, rational part that has had rather more to say since she crawled her way out of the Deep Roads—that can scarcely believe that she has allowed herself to be talked into what is starting to look like and inevitable disaster. But Isabela throws a smirk at her over her shoulder, and Hawke knows that she could be nowhere else.

“Over there,” Isabela says in a whisper, gesturing with her head to an ajar window.

Hawke winces.

“What?” the pirate demands.

“Not sure I’ll make the jump,” Hawke admits.

Isabela stares blankly at her for a moment before Hawke clarifies. “Hard to jump in plate,” she says, wave at her armored torso.

“You have a point,” Isabela grudgingly concedes.

She mutters to herself paces back and forth between the door and the window, Hawke’s eyes following her the entire time.

“Nothing for it,” the pirate says at last.

She tosses a wink in Hawke’s direction before diving through the window and into the crumbling house.

Hawke stands staring after her, mouth agape, for a moment before the noise starts.

“Who the hell are you?”

She hears the hiss of a dagger against its sheath and the sound of a blade sinking into flesh before her mind catches up with her.

“To arms!” Hawke shouts. The heavy door is locked. Hawke throws her weight against it. It doesn’t budge.

The shouting on the other side quiets and Hawke feels ice run through her veins. She flings herself against the door a second time, then a third.

She launches herself at it again, but it swings open before she makes contact. Hawke crashes into a surprised and blood-spattered Isabela. Her momentum sends the two of them tumbling backwards, and it is only Isabela’s balance, honed razor sharp by years at sea, that keeps them from falling to the floor.

Hawke can feel blood rushing to her face. The pirate has a hold of her, one hand on Hawke’s shoulder and the other arm wrapped around Hawke’s waist. She is closer to Isabela than she has allowed herself to be since the still-fuzzy night after coming home from the expedition, and a pleasant buzzing feeling is shooting along her skin at the proximity.

Her face is still smashed against Isabela’s shoulder when she hears Varric’s low whistle behind her. She takes advantage of his entrance to disentangle herself from Isabela.

“You do good work, Rivaini,” Varric observes, toing at the body of a muscle-bound rogue sprawled on the floor.

Isabela ignored him. “They’d keep the stash in the back,” Hawke hears her mumble as she picks her way deeper into the building. Hawke halfway raises an arm to slow her, but the pirate’s singular focus makes her hesitate.

Varric catches Hawke by the elbow and nods for her to join him waiting by the front. “Give her some space, Hawke,” he muttered. “She sees you all moon eyed like that and she’ll hop the first ship out.”

Hawke feels the rush of blood to her face. She stoops to adjust the strap on her leg guards to hide the red tinge that’s spreading across her cheeks. “I haven’t any idea—“

“Please,” Varric says, waving away her denial with a laugh. “The only person who hasn’t noticed is Merrill, and she still gets lost between the alienage and the Hanged Man.”

Hawke groans, resting her head on her knee.

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to get involved,” Varric says. “These things tend to work better when left to themselves.”

A sound from the back of the house sends Hawke rocketing to her feet. She races to the back, weapon at the ready, only to slide to a stop when she sees Isabela on her knees on the floor, bits of paper scattered around her.

“Ah,” Hawke says, axe awkwardly cradled in her hands. “Not in danger, then?”

Isabela doesn’t answer immediately. She is furiously digging through a large trunk, letting lose a string of what Hawke is fairly certain are Rivaini profanities.

“Isabela?” Hawke prompts when the flood of swearing ebbs.

The pirate, rather than answering, aims a kick at the trunk she had been digging through and drops to a sitting position on the floor, her head in her hands.

Baffled, Hawke maneuvers her way around Isabela to peer into the trunk.

She doesn’t know what Isabela’s mysterious relic is meant to look like, but she is fairly certain that the contents of the trunk—dirty stretches of parchment with scratchy writing scrawled across them and what appears to be the remains of a moldering boot—do not match the description. Curiosity getting the better of her, she pulls one of the bits of parchment from the trunk to examine it.

In light of Isabela’s obvious disappointment, Hawke reckons that she ought not laugh. Even as the notion that she should hold herself in crosses her mind, laughter bubbles up from her stomach, and she finds herself unable to hold it back.

Through tearing eyes, Hawke sees Isabela’s furious expression, but she can’t put a stop to her laughter long enough to explain herself. She waves the parchment she’s holding at Isabela, hoping the woman understands the suggestion to read the paper.

Grumpily, Isabela snatches the parchment. Her brow knits as she reads it, and Hawke notes, even through her gasping breaths and watering eyes, that the pensive expression suits Isabela well.

“What the hell is this shit?” Isabela asks through a bark of laughter.

Hawke, at last able to control her laughter takes several gulping breaths. “I think,” she says, still a little giddy, “it’s meant to be poetry.”

Isabela wrinkles her nose. “Maker,” she sighs. “And someone wrote this hoping to catch a lover? Terrible.”

Hawke lifts another of the bits of parchment from the trunk and reads aloud, “’The symphony I see in thee—‘“

She gets no farther before Isabela doubles over with laughter. “Oh, I know that one,” she grins, lifting it from Hawke’s hands.

“Not your relic, I suppose?” Hawke asks as she wipes tears from her cheeks.

Isabela scoffs and raises an eyebrow. “You think someone means to kill me over rotten poetry?”

Hawke shrugs. “Perhaps Castillon takes his literature very seriously?”

The snort of laughter from the pirate makes a smile twitch across Hawke’s face.

“Guess I’ll just have to keep looking,” Isabela says. She gives Hawke an apologetic smile. “I dragged you into all this trouble and nothing to show for it.”

“Plenty to show for it,” Hawke corrects her as she gathers up handfuls of the scribbled poetry. “Bad poetry and drinks at the Hanged Man. Perfect end to a day of ill-fated adventuring.”

The laugh that Isabela rewards her with is full throated and sends a warm feeling swirling in Hawke’s belly.

“To the Hanged Man, then,” the pirate says with a sigh that is too tragic to be genuine. “Maker knows I’ll need the drink if you’re planning to read all of those.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up? Thanks for reading.
> 
> Not sure I'm completely happy with this one, but I'm about to have to go on fanfic hiatus again soon, I think, so I wanted to get something posted. Thanks for being patient with me.
> 
> If you're interested, my book is now out. It's called Evin, and you can find it on Amazon (US and UK), at Barnes & Noble's website, and on foundationsbooks.com/library
> 
> You can also keep up with my original work at my author facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorASCrowder
> 
> @annabeth07 on twitter  
> piecesandthings on Tumblr


	4. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela wants to play a game.

Hawke grins so that she doesn’t sigh. The subterfuge is getting wearing.

She understands the caution—before Bethany went to the Wardens, Hawke herself had been well-practiced in the skill of saying one thing and meaning another, and she has found no shortage of uses for the ability since. But she has been running around Kirkwall all day, and it’s hot, and the straps and padding of her plate are old and resting uncomfortably, and she just wants to _get on with it already_.

So her glib tongue gets the best of her. “Oh, cloak and dagger phrases! How about ‘the queasy crow flies at midnight’?”

Mistress Selby mirror Hawke’s frustration. “How about, ‘the smart-mouthed Ferelden gets slapped across the face’?”

Hawke lets the jibe pass, but only because it is coupled with _actual instructions_. She sidesteps the woman’s work station to leaf through the list of jobs Selby hopes to find people brave or foolish enough to take. Her eyes land on a familiar name, and she bends over to get a closer look at the page in front of her.

“Terrie,” she mutters under her breath. Somewhere, dimly, the name rings a bell. “Terrie.”

She turns around and calls to Varric. When he reaches her side, she shows him the note. “Do we know a Terrie?”

The dwarf scratches at his chin as he tilts back his head and narrows his eyes. “Maybe. Wasn’t she one of the Starkhaven mages? The ones we helped sneak away from the Templars?”

Hawke makes a sound of recognition. “I think you’re right.” She gestures to get Selby’s attention. “We’ll take care of this one, if you don’t mind.”

Selby inclines her head and waves Hawke away, apparently still smarting over Hawke’s tone.

“To the coast, then,” Hawke says, waving to get Isabella and Merrill’s attention. “Off to save the damsel.”

* * *

“I’m bored with this. Let’s do something fun.”

Hawke frowns at the suggestion. “You want to just let bounty hunters run off with this poor girl?”

Isabela rolls her eyes with a long-suffering sigh and bumps her hip against Hawke’s. “Don’t put words in my mouth,” she said. “I’m saying we’ve got a long walk to this hole they’re hiding in. We ought to do something to pass the time.”

“Alright,” Hawke grins. “What did you have in mind?”

The pleased sound Isabela makes sends heat pooling in Hawkes belly. She shakes away the dozens of very pleasant but very not-appropriate-for-the-moment images from her mind. She reminds herself that they are on the coast for a _very important_ job, and she needs to _focus_.

“A game,” Isabela suggests.

Hawke’s expression is skeptical. “A game?”

A crooked grin tilts the pirate’s lips. “Three statements,” she says. “Two are true; one’s a lie.”

“And the other has to figure out which is which?”

“That’s right.”

Hawke shrugs. “What kind of statements?”

“Whatever comes to mind,” Isabela says.

From behind them, Varric snorts. “I see where this is going.”

Isabela throws a scowl at him over her shoulder before she rests a hand against the small of Hawke’s back. “Well? You want to play?”

Hawke chews on her bottom lip. It’s a risk. She’s not naïve enough to be unaware of the types of truths Isabela might draw from her, and she knows that even at her best and with people that _don’t_ leave her feeling breathless and stupid, she has a unique skill for putting her foot in her mouth. But nonetheless, she shrugs. “Why not? You first?”

A wicked grin pulls at Isabela’s lips.

* * *

Hawke frowns in thought as she swings an arc through the knot of Raiders lashing out at her.

“The second one,” she calls out to Isabela after a moment.

A dagger sinks into an assassin Hawke hadn’t seen creeping up behind her and Isabela is suddenly at her side.

“You don’t believe I had sex with the Hero of Ferelden?”

“I believe you did,” Hawke defends. “Just not during the Blight.”

“Shows you,” Isabela scoffs. “During the Blight, in Denerim, while there was still a bounty on her head.”

Hawke laughed as she lifted a coin purse from one of the bodies at her feet. “Truly, your appeal knows no bounds.”

Isabela’s laugh is not musical. It rises from her stomach and bursts forward like thunder during a storm. Hawke thinks it is the most thrilling sound in the world.

“I think the cave is that way,” Merrill says. Hawke is grateful for the interruption, the reminder that it is not, in fact, just her and Isabela (and the Raiders) enjoying a pleasant day on the coast. “Varric’s gone up ahead,” the elf rattles on. “He tried to get me to go with him, but I was worried that we’d leave you behind and there’d be more Raiders, and—is everything alright?”

“It’s fine, Merrill,” Hawke says. “We’re right behind you.”

Isabela is still laughing as Merrill disappears down the path. She brushes a hand across Hawke’s back as she maneuvered her way past towards the direction Merrill had indicated. “Your turn,” the pirate smirked over her shoulder.

Hawke taps her fingers against her gauntlet as she tries to think of a trio of statements. She smiles as the list comes to mind.

* * *

Terrie is unharmed, but shaken when they find her. Hawke does her best to comfort her—what would Bethany do? she tries to imagine—and implores her to get away from Kirkwall. She’s not sure if the girl will heed her advice, but Hawke has done what she promised and, at least for today, Terrie is safe.

Hawke wipes sweat from her brow and returns her ax to its place strapped to her back. Isabela wipes her daggers clean on one of the bounty hunter’s bodies, her tongue peeking out between her teeth and her brow furrowed.

“Problem, Isabela?”

She purses her lips as she stands and meets Hawke’s gaze. “I don’t believe you ever set fire to a tavern.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Hawke laughs. “Bethany was just learning fire spells, and I told her to aim for the barrels out back of the tavern.”

“You didn’t expect a fire spell to set something on fire?”

Hawke shrugged.

Isabela leans her head back and taps the toe of her boot against the ground. “Go again,” she says.

“What?”

“Do another three,” she demands.

“I thought it was your turn?”

“Well, now it’s yours again.”

“Are you two coming or what?” Varric calls. The tussle with the raiders has ruined his coat, and he’s been complaining that the trek along the coast has done damage to his dear Bianca. His grumpiness is beginning to get the better of him.

“On our way,” Hawke calls. She takes hold of Isabela’s arm and pulls her along.

The sun is setting along the coast. Hawke sighs—she hadn’t intended for this rescue mission to take the whole day.

Isabela bumps against her side. “Your three,” she reminds Hawke.

Hawke hums in thought. “I once got in trouble with a chantry sister because I had been taking the candles that they burned out of the storeroom and hiding them in Carver’s mattress,” she says. “When we first got to Kirkwall, Bethany and I hid all of Gamlen’s pants on the roof of his house.”

Isabela snorted.

Hawke feels her heart jumping in her chest as she makes her third statement. “I think you’re probably the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

She doesn’t wait to hear Isabela’s response. She races to catch up to Varric, her face aflame.

* * *

Isabela is quiet for most of the journey back to Kirkwall. Merrill chats happily about the success of their journey, how delightful she finds the stretch of land between the coast and the city, anything that comes to mind. She does so with enough enthusiasm that Varric’s grumpiness begins to ebb and he joins in the conversation, giving Hawke an excuse to keep quiet as well.

She is nearly convinced that Isabela will never speak to her again—that she has finally said too much and that the woman will flit her way out of her life. She has all but resigned herself to wallowing in despair for the rest of the night when they at last trudge back into Lowtown. They see Merrill to her house in the Alienage and make their way to the doors of the Hanged Man where Varric bids Hawke a good night.

Hawke returns the gesture with a lackluster goodbye of her own. She dreads the trip back to Hightown, the long night in a house that is still too new to her to feel like home, the prospect of empty days ahead.

“I’m not the most interesting woman you’ve ever met,” Isabela says.

Hawke spins on her heel to stare at the pirate. “What?”

“That one was the lie,” Isabela says. “I can’t be the most amazing woman you’ve met.”

Hawke blinks. “You can’t?”

“That’d make me more impressive than you,” Isabela observed. “And I’m only _equally_ impressive.”

For a moment, Hawke is dumbfounded. But Isabela winks at her, and her whole body is warm and tingly, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

“Stay a bit, Hawke,” Isabela says. “I’ll buy you a jigger of whiskey, and you can tell me all about getting in trouble with the Chantry and hiding Gamlen’s pants.”

A dazed grin stretches across Hawke’s face as she follows Isabela into the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been so long since I've worked on this that I forgot how it works? Anyway, thanks for sticking with me. I anticipate some big flirts in the next one-shot, whenever that gets written.
> 
> My focus has been more on my original work lately. I won't bore you with all those updates here. If you're interested in my original works (btw, my book is out now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JUT8H56/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1), feel free to follow/like my author Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AuthorASCrowder.
> 
> @annabeth07 on Twitter  
> piecesandthings on tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> Much of this dialogue comes directly from the game.
> 
> Steph is my cannon Hawke. She is a total cupcake that was immediately taken with Isabela. All puppy dog eyes and awkward flirting right from the get-go. This will be the home of whatever one-shots I end up writing in my downtime.
> 
> I also write original fiction, so if you like what you see here, check out my author page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorASCrowder
> 
> and/or my blog: authorascrowder.blogspot.com
> 
> These are the places where I'll be posting upcoming publication news and various tidbits about my writing.


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